


Whatever Trepidation You May Feel

by Fickle_Obsessions



Series: Sweet Baby, I Need Fresh Blood [5]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Harems, M/M, Murder, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 10:30:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7614616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fickle_Obsessions/pseuds/Fickle_Obsessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America's Founding Vampires. George Washington is the sire of a coven (more like harem) of vampires and Lafayette is a human he's grooming to join.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Trepidation You May Feel

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr user [consumptive-sphinx](http://consumptive-sphinx.tumblr.com) and other anons said "what about an amrev vampire au?" and I fell for it like a ton of bricks. Because this was for tumblr originally I will confess this is all empty calories, no healthy fiber.

"Did you manage to kill anyone in that ridiculous battle?" Washington asks Lafayette one night.

The boy hums, a soft, questioning noise. Washington is draped against the arm of a divan and Lafayette is spread atop him, his back to Washington’s chest. Washington likes to sit with his face tucked against the soft, vulnerable column of Lafayette’s neck, likes to listen to the steady pulse, and inhale the fresh milk smell of his skin. Lafayette, for his part, likes to be seen by the family in this so obviously favored position.

Washington lifts his chin, stops breathing against the vein throbbing just under the corner Lafayette’s jaw. “Did you kill anyone when you fought?” he repeats.

“Oh,” Lafayette says, now thinking a little more clearly. “Yes.”

He starts to reach his hand back in order to return Washington’s attention to his neck, but Washington catches his wrist and lifts it to his mouth. He asks, “How did it feel?” with his lips brushing over the thin skin and blue veins just beneath the swell of Lafayette’s palm.

The family, in their various positions about the room, do a good job of pretending not to be listening. Tallmadge and Hamilton are playing cards, and Laurens is reading nearby. All of them are too stiff and too quiet to be ignorant of the conversation occurring in their presence. Only Arnold is missing, sent away earlier by Washington on an unknown errand.

“It wasn’t what I was expecting,” Lafayette says. “It felt clumsy.”

“Clumsy?”

“I’d never struck someone with a sword before. I tried to slash at him one handed, but it wasn’t enough. I had to take my sword in both hands and try several times. When he finally went down, I ended up falling in the mud.” He wrinkles his nose, “I felt a fool.”

Washington rewards his honesty by releasing his wrist and turning his face back into Lafayette’s neck. He sucks the skin over the same throbbing vein until he gets a soft little whine, then he asks, “Was that only the one?”

Lafayette doesn’t reply, just tilts his head to offer up more of his neck. But Washington isn’t tempted, saying sternly, “Answer me, Lafayette.”

Lafayette sighs, opens his eyes and looks back at him. “No. There was another man that I ran through in the back.”

Washington seems to find this interesting, “The back?”

“Yes. He was hacking away at my friend. I had to make him stop.”

“Did you feel guilty? After stabbing a man in the back?”

A wrinkle appears between Lafayette’s brow, he contemplates the question as if it never occurred to him. “No. I only regretted not having gotten there sooner. Jean had already died.”

“And then?”

Lafayette shrugs, “And then I was shot through the leg and spent the rest of the battle trying to get out of the way of horses and men who thought nothing of trampling me. Then I was left behind. I waited all night for help but no one came.” Neither his voice or his expression are soft with grief; they are hard, disgusted. He seems to be remembering every distasteful thing about the battle all at once then, suddenly, he melts. “At least not until you did.”

Washington gifts him with a small smile as he remembers that morning, picking his way through the weak morning sunlight, curious to see who survived the night. He found Lafayette propped against an upturned wagon, still clinging to his sword. He was pale from loss of blood, but his lips, parted around pained, shallow breaths, remained a vivid red. He’d been filthy and pathetic and lovely at all once.

“I’d like you to do something for me, my dear boy,” Washington says. He watches with pleasure the way Lafayette’s eyes light up at the opportunity to obey. He waits patiently for the order, but instead Washington turns to Hamilton, “Arnold should be back by now, yes?”

Hamilton nods, “I’ll get him.” He abandons his card game with Tallmadge, uncharacteristically eager to be helpful. 

Lafayette has enough sense to be suspicious. He looks at Laurens and Tallmadge and senses some tension but it is clear he can make neither heads nor tails about why. Laurens and Tallmadge know better than to reveal anything with their expressions.

It’s not very long at all before Hamilton and Arnold return, followed unexpectedly by a man, a stranger. Lafayette looks first at Washington then back to the man. He is ordinary. A mortal man, no longer a youth but not yet distinctly aged. His clothes are neither shabby or fine. He has the look of a yeoman, a farmer with no great designs on fate. The most distinctive thing about him is his facial hair, red mutton chops which are well fluffed up but not exactly tidy. The man is docile and silent. Actually he appears completely uninterested in the room, or its occupants.

Lafayette frowns. “What is wrong with him?”

The question is not asked of any one person in the room, but it’s Washington that answers. “He’s entranced, my boy. Completely subsumed by Arnold’s will.” 

As if to make a show of it, Arnold silently bids the man to kneel. He folds his legs his legs without hesitation, eyes cast down at the oriental rug beneath him. This prompts Hamilton to move. He crosses over to the mantel and plucks something off it, then comes to give it to Washington. It’s a knife, a stiletto dagger that they found lying in a drawer when they took over the house. Hamilton presents the hilt to Washington who takes it and offers it promptly to Lafayette.

Lafayette accepts the dagger carefully.

“I’ve asked Laurens not to hunt tonight,” Washington tells him. “To wait for my word to feed. And he’s done a marvelous job,” he glances over to where Laurens sits, clenched hands resting upon a closed book. “But it’s time now. Past time, I think.”

Washington looks back at Lafayette, and states plainly, “I’d like you to help him.”

“Help him?” Lafayette asks, needlessly obtuse considering he’s holding a knife. Considering that he knows exactly what everyone in the room is except for himself and the man kneeling before them.

“Yes,” Washington nods kindly, not at all impatient. “I’d like you to give Laurens a notch on that man’s throat to use.”

For once, Washington speaks an order but Lafayette does not immediately comply. The air in the room gets very still, and for Lafayette the only sound defying the silence is the crackle of the fire. Those who can and wish to listen they can also hear two heartbeats, one in a rhythm slow and ponderous, the other in a rabbit-fast tattoo. The slow, unaffected thumping comes incongruously from the man kneeling in the center of the room.

“Lafayette,” Washington says, firmly. “You are making Laurens wait.”

If Washington particularly minded asking twice for something, Arnold and Hamilton would not be in this room, watching things unfold. That generosity does, however, have its limits. Lafayette knows this and it’s probably just as much fear as loyalty that propels him to stand and move toward the man. Laurens rises up as well, setting his book on the seat of his chair and crossing the room in quick, long strides. He kneels down also, just beside the man, eyes fixed on the sun-reddened skin of his throat. Laurens is so focused that he does not spare a second glance to Lafayette who so far has done nothing but stand before the man, the dagger held loosely at his side.

Several seconds first tick by, but Lafayette finally presses the blade to the man’s neck. That’s all he does, just puts the flat of the blade to the skin and waits. At first the man does not react at all. Then Arnold, in an attempt perhaps to tease Lafayette, or perhaps to make him fail this test, compels the man raise his eyes from the floor to look at Lafayette. Washington frowns at Arnold but does not interfere.

Lafayette looks down at the man for a moment, studying him, looking into the wide eyes turned upward and glinting in the candlelight. Washington remains utterly still and quiet, but Lafayette’s eyes drift to him anyway. The knife remains at the man’s throat, but he is forgotten as Lafayette takes in Washington, the way he is watching Lafayette with naked interest. In the length of time it takes for Washington to slowly blink once, twice Lafayette makes a decision. He returns his attention to the man, to the knife he’s holding against his neck.

Washington holds a breath as Lafayette turns his hand, presses harder with the blade. He breaks the skin and pulls the length of the knife through the cut. At the first scent of blood, Laurens grabs a fistful of the man’s hair and pulls. He seals his lips over the wound only a second after Lafayette pulls the knife away. Arnold relinquishes his hold on the man who comes to just fast enough to gasp before Laurens bites down. He doesn’t make much sound after that.

Lafayette doesn’t linger over the scene. He steps around Laurens and the unfortunate man and returns to Washington. Standing before the divan, Lafayette slips the blade flat between his index and middle finger, and uses them to wipe it clean. A little bit of blood gathers around his knuckles, his immaculate nails, and he offers them to Washington, sees a smile on his lips before they close around his fingers. The sharp edge of a fang slides across Lafayette’s fingertip, and the boy shudders. It’s a testament to Washington’s control that he doesn’t bite down.

Eventually Washington tugs at Lafayette’s wrist, pulls the slender fingers, now sucked clean, from his mouth. He kisses Lafayette’s knuckles fondly and then bids him to return to his previous position, splayed across and cradled against Washington’s chest. Before them Hamilton is drawing closer to Laurens, impatient from the scent of blood but also the long moment of anticipation Lafayette made them all endure. Finally Laurens pulls away from his prey, panting, and Hamilton all but dives for him, holds his face up with hands cupped around his cheeks and attacks his mouth.

The man, now a corpse, falls away from with the unique thud of something that once was alive but is no longer.

Washington presses his lips to Lafayette’s neck again, listens to his heartbeat, already quite rapid, speed up even more with fear. Lafayette has just gone from being one of two mortals in the room to again being the only one. It’s a stark reminder of what it means to be here with them. 

Washington waits patiently for that lone heartbeat to settle again before saying, “Ask your questions, Lafayette.”

Lafayette pulls in a breath slowly and exhales it on a sigh. He’s calm when he speaks, “Who was he?”

Washington looks over at Arnold, he only shrugs broadly. “A man who had the misfortune of being alone when Arnold went hunting,” Washington says in a plain statement of fact, neither overly cold nor regretful.

“What will you do with the body?”

“A man that size is best disposed of in a body of water.” This answer is just as dryly stated, but it reminds Washington of something.

He looks at Hamilton and Laurens, says, “Boys,” in that way he has, where it cuts right through anything, even such a feral kiss. Hamilton turns away from the kiss immediately but Laurens is slower, moving as if drugged. His prey must have had wine recently, might have even been dead drunk when Arnold found him.

“I do believe that you forget yourselves,” Washington tells them. “And our rug. Deal with the body first.”

Hamilton obeys, though not before he sucks two more brutal kisses on Laurens’ mouth. They rise, Laurens upon knees so unsteady that Hamilton lifts the corpse alone. He hefts it on his shoulder and keeps it steady with one hand while taking Laurens’ hand with the other. They leave the room, and Arnold sits down across from Tallmadge. He starts sorting the cards to begin a new game. Tallmadge sighs and discards his hand. 

“Cheat even once, Benedict,” Tallmadge warns, though he does not name any consequences.  
Arnold raises his eyebrows in a mock show of offense, “I would never, Benjamin.”

And it is suddenly as if this were any other night.

Except that when Washington returns his attention to Lafayette, to find he is being carefully observed. 

“Would you have killed me if I didn’t do as you asked?” Lafayette looks right into Washington’s eyes as he asks it.

Washington’s stillness is an answer in and of itself. Seeing that Lafayette has already guessed he sighs, and slides his palm over Lafayette’s throat and says, truthfully, “I would have.”

Lafayette tries to turn away, but Washington’s grip on his neck tightens and turns him back. “But,” Washington says, and he knows that Arnold and Tallmadge are no doubt listening with interest at this rare allowance of an exception. “I would not have asked you for it tonight if I had suspected you would fail me.”

There’s another moment of heavy silence while Lafayette considers him, eyes traveling over Washington’s face. It is, he must find, unchanged by the revelations of the evening. Lafayette breathes slowly under his palm, then presses up against the hand on his throat. Washington allows Lafayette to lift his lips up to Washington’s in a deep, searching kiss.

Washington’s mouth is unnaturally cool and tastes faintly of the blood of a man Lafayette did not want to kill. Lafayette does not shy away from it in the slightest.

“I’m not going to fail you,” he says when he pulls away. It’s a fierce, and precious little oath.

Washington says nothing, just tucks his nose against Lafayette’s pulse, grateful. He is going to stop it one day, that strong, vigorous heartbeat that he finds so fascinating. Probably much sooner than he should he’ll finally sink his teeth into the soft, thin skin wrapped around muscle and vein and drain this beautiful boy until he is almost dead.

And then he’s going to make Lafayette belong to him even more than he does now.

**Author's Note:**

> Title of this story and series from "Fresh Blood" by Eels. Find me on [tumblr.](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com)


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